The Kids Are Not Alright

We were wondering when Gen V was gonna introduce Annabeth. Marie Moreau’s little sister, ever since she witnessed the adolescent power surge that killed their parents, has been a tease in the margins of the series. She was kept as a Vought secret in Season 1, and part of the conversation here in Season 2, but still unseen. Until Episode 5 (“The Kids Are Not Alright”), when Annabeth becomes another tool of Cipher trying to apparently build Marie into the perfect Vought mousetrap. 

The crew got played by Cipher in Gen V Season 2 Episode 4, and that wasn’t the first time. While they seemed to determine the dean of Superhero U was a human himself, they also determined he can enter people’s minds and bodies without their knowledge and involuntarily control them. His victims are conscious for this. Imagine a gross feather, tickling you from the inside. When he did it to Jordan, during the fight, they say they could still feel, see, think. But “Cipher was driving.” Add to the crew being played on two fronts a third defeat for our heroes. The dean will continue his experiments on them at Elmira, because they’ve all been re-imprisoned. 

Cipher. Who is this guy? When he’s not logging W’s against the crew, the dean remains the biggest WTF of Gen V Season 2. Last episode revealed his care for a time-ravaged man in a secret hyperbaric chamber – it’s gotta be his dad, right, who we’re just gonna suggest is the actual Dr. Thomas Godolkin? – and this episode has Cipher casually plunging a knife into his own hand. Polarity, watching his little stunt threat with the kitchen utensil get casually waved off, can only sit stunned as the dean also dismisses the death of his son. Andre, according to Cipher, didn’t die trying to escape Elmira. He died while trying to endure one of the dean’s experiments with power sets, the attempts to increase supes’ ability loads. Andre was a casualty of Cipher’s R&D.

Post-fight, Cipher has also put Cate, Emma, Jordan, and Marie back behind bars. He’s not hiding his glee at this, prancing around the halls, and grandstanding that his experiments will continue. Which we think is a little strange, considering he could have just left them in Elmira in the first place. But Gen V needed its heroes on the outside for season setup reasons, so they can be back inside. For setup reasons? Because now that everyone’s locked up, Cipher’s excited at the possibility of their potential, and especially Marie’s. Her blood-bag-moving powers don’t simply make her a weapon. She is, as Hamish Linklater seethes into the metal walls of Marie’s cell, “Salvation!”

Maybe Sister Sage (Susan Heyward) can shed some light on Cipher’s whole deal. The supergenius and Season 4 addition to The Seven in The Boys appears in this episode during a flashback – Hey Cipher, let’s have sex in front of your decrepit old dad, who we know is watching us through filmy eyes – and during the crew’s reincarceration, after which she says “We are gonna get everything we want.” It’s true that Sage’s brains and schemes challenged Homelander during the last season of The Boys. While she ended up as Vought’s CEO, she was obviously working her own angle. Is this meeting with Cipher part of that angle? Because her involvement with him seems coded against rule by Homelander. 

Gotta be honest, Gen V: Can Cipher and now Sister Sage get on with their evil plan for our young supes? Because seeing Marie, Jordan, Emma, and even Cate be fitted for explosive neck collars and get tossed into a black site prison with no hope of escape isn’t such a sick move for series momentum. 

Obviously, the crew would be surveilled while inside Elmira’s walls. It’s too convenient that they can speak between the cells. Top to bottom, their experience is all part of the experiment. So obviously, when the crew escapes their cells with ease, this too can be seen as part of the program. Cipher is watching them, the same way has been from the beginning, whether they’re in this superhero prison or on superhero campus. For Marie, this knowledge at least provides the basis for a pretty solid action movie moment. “He wants me to ascend to my full potential? Fine. Because I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

But that was before she learned the lengths Cipher’s experiments will go to. Freshly busted out of their cells, Marie, Jordan, Emma, and Cate find Annabeth (Keeya King) in hers with her throat freshly cut. As the blood pools, Emma reaches bottom with the Cipher Experience. “She’s fucking dead?! I mean, what do we do? This is pure fucking evil!”

Gen V waited to introduce Annabeth Moreau until there was a series moment where Marie would make or break it. Well, being challenged by your biggest enemy/best teacher to close the wounds of and revive an innocent person/your estranged sister, all while you and your friends are locked up in a prison for superheroes, certainly counts as such a moment. Whether this means Marie is now a powered-up version of herself, whether it means Annabeth lives or not, and whether any of them can stay alive to beat Cipher, is a moment way less easy to predict. 

Class Notes for Gen V Season 2 Episode 5 (“The Kids Are Not Alright”):

• Sister Sage’s cameo in Gen V arrives with a tidbit of information from The Boys. In the Season 4 finale, Vought exec Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) injected herself with Compound-V in a play to stay away from certain death by Homelander lazer-eye. Here in Gen V, it is established Sage is now Vought’s CEO. “Ashley Barrett certainly can’t – not in her state.” What does that mean? What is her state? What kind of wacko Compound V’d supe did Ashley Barrett become? 

• Sam Riordan Watch: Not only is Sam not in Episode 5 of Gen V, he denies Emma when she asks for his super-strength help. Sam visits his parents instead, who tell him for his whole life, Vought lied to them about Compound-V. (Remember, they lied to Marie Moreau’s parents, too.) Not only did the super-drug not help Sam’s parents treat his preexisting intellectual challenges. (It is suggested this could be a form of schizophrenia, but not made clear.) And Comp-V didn’t help Sam later in life, either, when it fueled his transformation into a killer for Vought. With the all-powerful company finally revealed as the true villain in Sam’s life, we feel like he’s got a date with busting the crew out of their latest stint in Elmira.

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How To Watch Gen V

New episodes of Gen V drop Wednesdays on Prime Video.

If you aren’t a Prime Video subscriber yet, you can get started with a 30-day Amazon Prime free trial, including Prime perks like the Prime Video streaming service, free two-day shipping, exclusive deals, and more. After the free trial, Amazon Prime costs $14.99/month or $139/year.

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Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.